Against the Manichees 75–84

and no longer was a dirge sent up from burning flesh, but a song was performed from a soul keeping festival, he stooped to see what was inside and was honoured with the sight of the angel. He uttered the cry, “Did we not throw three men into the furnace? See, I see four, and the fourth like a son of God.” At once, then, he writes a law about this, to confess God; he becomes a witness to the truth, an interpreter of the vision. Shall we slander his interpretations, then, or praise them? To be an ambassador for Christ is good. Or shall we leave it in the wicked portion? For if to be an ambassador of the divine oracles and a witness to the truth is good, and Nebuchadnezzar was an ambassador, wrote and sent to his whole realm, then the [doctrine of] nature is undone. For knowing the good, he looked toward learning the good. And if he blunted the learning by his disposition toward wickedness, he is accused. For it is one thing to be wholly unable to do good, another to know it but be unable, being overcome by inclination to the passions. And since no fruits of the devil were found among men, and their way was put to shame and their absurdity refuted, where shall we turn now? Unless we go to the demons, if they should say, “No man is a fruit of the devil, but demons alone are his offspring and progeny.” And saying this they will be put to shame in this too; but first let them hear. If no man so far has been freed from the one, then Satan has nothing in common with this life, but is separated from all things. He has become a stranger to all, he has been cast out, swallowed down; and evil is capturable and dissoluble, being dissolved and consumed; it will no longer have the condition of things that do not vanish; and not having a harmless and indestructible nature, it will no longer be suspected of being unbegotten; and not being unbegotten, evil will appear neither without beginning nor without end, once not existing and now seeming to buzz about. For what it is, is not a substance, but a sickness that has befallen substances, able to be separated from substances and subsistent beings. For that the deceiver himself is what he is by a fall and by ruin, the fall and the slip bearing witness by the removal of the goods that existed before, Isaiah the prophet bears witness: “How has the morning star fallen from heaven, rising early!”, knowing his present state as fallen and his old state as divine and most radiant; and the Saviour bears witness too, saying in the Gospel, “See, I see

Satan fallen like lightning from heaven.” If he had been so by nature and had always been so, it would not have been called a fall in one place and a falling away in another. For what falls, falls from some standing; and what falls away departs from some wealth. If he is spoken of among the fallen, he was once in a standing and firmness; and if he is accused among those who have fallen away, he was not poor, was not ever an Irus, when he had much wealth, but, having suffered the loss of that wealth through some sickness, he is judged among the beggared. The Scripture certainly admits the wealth. For if “how has the morning star fallen away,” and the name was wealth, and being the morning star he had the very working and power and wealth and possession of the morning star, and falling away from it became empty of it, he is poor in the wealth of the morning star, wanders and is in danger, an Irus and fallen away, he who of old had much wealth. And if, according to the Gospel, he is among those who fall and lie on the ground and roll about now on the earth, he once stood and could say, “Our feet were standing in your courts, O Jerusalem”; he could hear, “Stand, having girded your loins with truth”; and though able to hear, he did not keep safe the saying, “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall,” and having made no provision for such things, he rolls about in them today. For what always lies on the ground could not fall (for it lies on the ground), but what has fallen and come to the ground from those standing and supported must have come to fall; and what is always poor and has never received any wealth will never fall away, for it always has nothing and cannot fall away, never having had anything. But what has undergone and suffered a falling away comes from much wealth and substance. Such is the first refutation. But since (they say) evil, advancing further and stretching itself out and coming near the light, snatched from the light and swallowed from the light, come, let us not refuse to overthrow the advocacy they have made for the wicked one against the truth. For by this account they exalt wickedness and cheapen truth, and give sinews to wickedness, while supposing truth without sinews. For if wickedness snatched, and the light was snatched, and being snatched suffered, and suffering was passible, then by their account God is passible and Satan impassible, the one able to suffer, the other able to act. For since the light

is passible, he himself too would be passible, not being other than the light, if indeed it could suffer, and suffer not from itself but from the enemy who fights it, and depart from itself and come to be with the worse. And how is the one who has a unifying nature separated from his own? For things that are by nature are not naturally separated from themselves. If the light was unbegotten and united to the unbegotten, how could it ever be separated? How could it be freed from itself and become other than itself? For if it served the wicked one and, forced by wickedness, then chose the things of wickedness and did the things of wickedness, and was ignorant of itself and no longer recognized itself, but had become forgetful of itself, and thought itself to be such as the wicked is, the account will appear self-contradictory. For the unbegotten neither is ignorant of itself nor will become other than itself, but remains such as it was and will never be freed from itself, never having begun to be. But since they utter old wives’ and moldy tales, not knowing what they say, but put to shame by what they say, let us add this too to the account. The light could be changed and become other than itself, come to be with wickedness, forget itself, and do whatever wickedness does; the rulers of wickedness could also suffer this, and rather be changed to the good. But since the change is in force and alteration is possible, how was it not better for the evil to be changed to virtue rather than the good to vice? And how did God endure it and allow the light to be taken? How did he not check the onrush? How did he not keep his own? How after the removal did he not wish to provide for what was removed? How did he not check the attempt beforehand? How did he not rather keep them uncapturable, and not honour with help those captured and taken? If he allowed it so that the light, coming among the evil, might change the evil, as though evil could be changed, then evil things are no longer natural, being able to change, and from evil things he receives the change as a pledge against nature. But if he knew that it would not change, and that evil is not naturally altered, how did he in vain let the good suffer loss and not bestow gain on the evil? And how does he know that evil things themselves are not altered, but overlooked himself and his own good things being altered? For this is an absurd definition: that he himself is alterable because his own things are altered, while matter is not altered. And of this such is the

refutation, so that we may cut short a long discourse, passing over in silence their emissions, their battles, those myth-makings and battles of giants, so that what has been said about the beginning of things may be said as a kind of starting point and be a seed of inquiries. Let us also work out the account concerning the law, having moderately raised the account concerning the beginning. For they think they accept the Gospel, but are eager to blame the Law and the Prophets, and they have slandered the whole Old Testament. They have pretended to honour the Gospels, putting on rather an honour for the Gospels, so as to take the pretence as a bait for those they deceive. For they do not confess to honour the Gospels because they agree with the Gospels, but because the name of Jesus has been honoured, they pretend. For if they honoured the Gospels, they ought not to circumcise the Gospels, nor take away parts of the Gospels, nor add others, nor write additions to the Gospels by reason or their own opinion. Nor does a tongue hold these Gospels, and they pass them on by reading. At any rate they have added whatever they wished and taken away whatever they judged, and they lie in the name too … For this middle and indifferent thing will never be by itself, but takes the imitation of each, and will come to share in either, and has this state, able to be in participation of either. And it will no longer be an unbreakable and dividing wall, preventing the attack of each. For being in the middle and changing its form by communion with one, it joins the one that has taken it, and would become either divine, imitating God, or evil, having taken the stamp of evil. And if this happened, it would no longer be vice against virtue, but two would move against one, and the other would be besieged, pressed by two. For wherever the middle inclined, the account, appearing doubled by the addition, carries out the attack against the other. And if they say the middle is no longer a wall dividing the substances from neighbouring and approaching one another, but some empty and gaping middle, the cause of separation, they will again say what they do not know. For what is gaping, what is empty, other than a notion of the empty and gaping? If it is something, it is not empty or gaping; but if it is nothing, and for this reason is empty because it is nothing, and for this reason gaping because it does not exist at all, how does what does not exist divide existing things? How does what does not exist at all separate the existing and the real? For things that in no way

exist cannot distinguish existing and real things. And such was the refutation brought. But since, advancing still in error and deceit, they bring forth still more deceitful and erring words, let us not keep silent. For they say that wickedness, advancing and moving against itself, wronged itself and ravaged itself, but when it came to the region of truth, it was struck with amazement and wondered at the sudden light; it forgot its own fighting, attacked what appeared, snatched light, swallowed what it saw. Here there is much laughter and great mockery; here every Greek myth is trampled, defeated by this figure. For myths are told as myths, but believed as myths; but this one, if it were believed as a myth as it is told as a myth, would do little harm; but as it is, it surpasses the myths and is believed by the foolish as truth. For if, as you say, being mad and besieging itself by itself, having reached its own borders, it saw light, was amazed, was freed from its own fighting, attacked what appeared [and] snatched what it saw, how will these accounts not appear impossible and false? For how did wickedness wrong itself, destroy itself, abolish itself, now swallowing, now begetting, if it was unbegotten? For it was being dissolved in destroying itself, and could no longer exist, destroying itself. And if it had its parts destroyed, what sufficient pledge is there that the whole is not destroyed, when the parts have kept being destroyed? And if it begot itself and began to be, then beginning to be it was also begotten. How then still unbegotten? So they will receive the refutation of their absurd opinion not from another but from their own nonsense. For in uttering much they utter things fighting against themselves, and no longer wait to be made to blush by another, but in talking nonsense suffer this from their own rashness. For how could what can be dissolved and admits dissolution and can be destroyed be unbegotten? How could it be from itself? How did it not begin from another? Since such a thing is indestructible and impassible, while what can vanish and be destroyed is not from itself. And if it is destroyed, as you say (for your account defines this, admitting the swallowing), being is alteration and the swallowing of the … destruction … they call the Gospel, not having kept the body of the Gospel as a body, but another body of letters reaching as far as the name of the Gospel,

having made it to suit their own wishes. For they have dishonoured the Gospels more than others. For those who do not accept them, and in not accepting do not corrupt them, only shake them off, but do not trespass on the writings; but these, seeming to have received them, have trespassed on the writings, danced upon them, peddled them, and done the works of sorcerers and wicked men. Those disbelieved, and used bare unbelief; they did not endure to study what they did not believe. These, coming into the middle, have tried to loosen the harmony, dared to destroy the rhythm with artful teachings, making the name of the Gospel a pretext for deceit. For if they knew the Gospel, they would not be ignorant of the Law; and if they were ignorant of the Law, how did they accept Jesus? For Jesus is not received without the Law. For he who longs for the end investigates the beginning, but he who despises the beginning suffers in vain, speaks in vain, and has no arrival at the end. And if Christ is the end of the Law, they toil in vain, being fugitives from the Law while professing to know Jesus. Unless the Law speaks, the Lord is not recognized. For the silence of the Law is ignorance of the one proclaimed, and learning the Law is knowledge of the one announced beforehand. For if they had listened to Moses, they would have believed in the one who has come. Certainly the one who was raised is not believed unless the Law produces faith in those who hear. For even if someone says, “Send Lazarus to tell my brothers not to come into the way of this torment,” and when Abraham says, “They have Moses and the prophets,” he says, “Unless someone rises from the dead, they will not believe,” he will hear, “If they did not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they listen if someone rises from the dead.” Ah! For neither does the message of the one raised … the Law and the Prophets … Jesus, without their company, did not think fit to appear even to the apostles; and though able to be borne witness by the Father, he did not dishonour the company of the saints; but wishing to give the eyes of the apostles a most exact faith, when he led them up on the mountain and was transfigured, he showed Moses and Elijah, so that the company of holiness might become a testimony, and so that whoever receives Jesus might not dishonour those with him, lest, cheapening the bodyguards and servants, he dishonour the king himself. So great care, at any rate, has the Saviour taken of the Law and the Prophets that he left nothing of the Law incomplete, but fulfilled all that was written, and cried out, “I did not come

to abolish the law, but to fulfil it”; and to enter the temple and drive out the improper dealings, so that, returning the house clean, he might give the most exact proof by the deed that he cared for things that were his own and his Father’s. For he cries, “My Father’s house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.” And since there are countless sayings able to put their absurd opinion to shame, so that we may not stretch the discourse to length by using more words, let us leave it to others to use the correspondences of the sayings, while we, using them in measure, go on to the very oppositions of the oracles. Accepting the Gospel, they do not accept the Law; for they do not accept even the holy Gospel entire. For they would have received the Law too if they accepted the Gospel entire. But as it is, having first peddled the Gospel, they naturally do not accept the Law. They are convicted, then, of not enduring the Law because they have robbed the Gospel. And if the Gospel bears witness and they do not honour the Law, they have dishonoured the testimony; for it is no longer dishonour of the Law but unbelief in the witness. And if one of the Gospels bore witness and another were silent, and the dishonour fell on one alone, the other Gospels would not have kept silent, thinking the dishonour of one a common dishonour. But if Mark says, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet,” and Matthew, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham,” and the one knows Abraham as forefather of the birth according to the flesh and honours David, while the other joins the Gospel to the Law and has understood the Law as the beginning of the Gospel, then the Saviour speaks truly when he says, “He who rejects you rejects me”; for the dishonour no longer stops at the Law but goes up to the Saviour himself. Let the Jews hear, “If you listened to Moses, you would listen to me; for he wrote about me”; and let the Manichees hear, “If you listened to the Gospel, you would listen to the Law; for the Gospel has written about the Law.” But the Jews, taking a veil, have neither understood the Law nor recognized the one announced; while the heretics have eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear, and, not having peered into the Gospels, they have fought the Law. For see, John cries, “There came a man sent from God, whose name was John; he came for testimony,

to bear witness to the light.” He knows the witness and knows the one witnessed to, and he describes the witness beforehand: “The Law and the Prophets were until John.” So John bears witness, and the Law is a witness, and the Law is witnessed to. See how great an absurdity unbelief about the testimonies entails. And when these have spoken so, neither is Luke silent. For he speaks the same voice and utters things in harmony with the others, and narrates that Gabriel, appearing to Mary, gave a heavenly greeting, saying, “Hail, favoured one, the Lord is with you”; and when she was troubled at the word and reasoned within herself, saying, “What sort of greeting might this be?”, he said, “Do not fear, Mary; for you have found favour before God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And David is honoured and confessed father of the Saviour, and the rule remains and is handed to the Lord and receives no end, the rule being glorified in what has no end. These, then, are the beginnings of the Gospels. For we had to weave the discourse from the beginnings, so that one following behind the discourse may perceive the sequence and harmony of the words from all the Gospels. And since the apostolic ministry too keeps a Gospel character, and Paul knows it and measures his own ministry of sufferings as a part of the Gospel (for he says, “according to my gospel through Jesus Christ”), let us not omit the beginnings of the apostle either, but call them to mind too, so that, having gone through all the Scriptures and the beginnings of the Scriptures, we may arrange them by the agreement of the Law. Writing to the Hebrews he says thus: “In many parts and many ways God spoke of old to the fathers in the prophets; in these last days he has spoken to us in a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the ages.” Here he knows the Father of the Son, and a Father who knows the Son. He does not divide the matter, he is not silent about the ancients, he does not ascribe the prophets to another, but to God of the prophets and Father of the Son. And Paul has not divided or separated, but proclaims one and the same, worshipped by them and having begotten this one, the begetter of this one, and using those as worshippers and servants. For he whose servants the prophets are,

his son is Christ. And if you honour the Son but slander and revile the servants, you utter with your mouth what you please. Do you see that the Son is indignant? He does not endure the Father being insulted. For if the Father has reckoned the dishonour of the Son as his own dishonour, how much more will the Son reckon the insult to the Father as his own cheapening? And so that, proceeding little by little, we may put them to shame step by step, let us attempt this. If the Law is God’s, why do they not accept the Law? And if you slander the Law, whose words and voice is the Law? By whose power was what is written in the Law spoken? For here the heresies divide and no longer argue alike, but against one another. The Valentinians say this, the Manichees that, and elsewhere Marcion testifies spittle and not words against the Law. The Valentinians say, “The God of the Law was just, and being just he was not the Father of the Son. Jesus,” they say, “is good; and the Father is good too; the Father of the Son is good, and what is begotten is good; but the God of the Law is just.” And arguing so, they have not understood what relation the just has to the good, nor have they conceived even in imagination that whatever is just is good and whatever is good is just. Since they cannot have such ideas, let them be asked only this: if the God of the Law is just and is not the Father of the Son, Jesus is not just; and how do we look for justice from the Son? If he was not begotten of the just one, how does he judge? How does he give sentence? How has the judgement seat been entrusted to him by the Father? How does he repay each according to what he did? How does Paul speak truly when he says, “To those who by endurance in good work seek eternal life, God works with them for good; but to those who from rivalry obey unrighteousness, wrath and fury, affliction and distress, upon every soul of man who does evil”? For the words are undone if the definition of the just is not given to the Son. But if punishment is laid down for those who have stumbled, and the oversight of the just is the measure of punishment, while honours and gifts are stored up for those who are approved, and honour is weighed by the judgement of the just, how are they set apart and not checked in their rashness? And if the Only-begotten is such, but the Father not such, then like is no longer begotten of like, no longer the image of the begetter, no longer the “stamp”, no longer the “radiance”, no longer “he who sees the Son sees the Father”, if the Father does not have all that the Son has. And the Saviour cries in the

Gospel, “Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.” What shall we do? Turn our backs on the Saviour’s word? Disbelieve what is written? Or shall we admire the word (for it is the word of truth) and set the Valentinians, as madmen and demon-possessed, outside the godly and holy assemblies? But since we are doing something improper by lengthening the discourse against the heretics, when this subject does not draw us, let us call the discourse back and go to the subject before us, having considered these things too for the sake of profit, so that this account may not be wholly passed over in silence by us. For wickedness, divided three ways, has spoken against the Law, and using so many divisions it has used as many servants and champions of blasphemy, having chosen those able to serve it: through Valentinus, to belittle the Law and separate it from the Gospel; through Marcion, that the writing of the Law is from some abortion; through the Manichee, that it is from some wicked one, lightless, wholly darkness. Such things he fabricates, such little phrases he composes, he talks emptily, stunning untrained ears by the composition of words. That is why one must ask such questions: if the wicked one wrote the Law, that lightless one, being wholly and throughout darkness, how did he know of the coming of Jesus? How did he know of his arrival? How, before the things were done, did he understand what God planned, announced beforehand and showed beforehand? For the writings of the Law plainly testify from above to the arrival of the Son. If they say, “The Law did not show it, nor did the prophets signify it beforehand,” they will be refuted as speaking against what is manifest; not we weaving the refutation, but the Gospels themselves plainly speaking and crying out up and down, here, “that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled,” and there, “I did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it.” But if, clearly refuted by this, they agree, what will they answer? For if “no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God,” and the one who wrote the Law knew the things in God and understood whatever God willed, and for this reason wrote with oversight and knowledge, then the writer was God’s, and was God, and was in God, and for this reason spoke whatever God willed, understanding the things in God and not ignorant. And if no one knows our heart, but only the Maker knows it, and our heart learns others but cannot learn God, and what God willed was not